Four Asian men suspected of sexually exploiting a vulnerable teenager have been granted lifelong anonymity after a council abandoned attempts to prevent them from seeing her.

Concerns about the safety of the girl, who is white and from Rotherham, peaked in August when she was discovered in a hotel room with one of the men, alongside vodka, cannabis, condoms and female Asian clothing.

The South Yorkshire council sought a civil injunction to protect the child from the men, who it thought had pursued her for sex.

Last week, at a court hearing that it attempted to shroud in secrecy, the council withdrew its application because of “insufficient evidence”. The Times successfully fought for the case to be heard in public.

Four Asian men suspected of sexually exploiting a vulnerable teenager have been granted lifelong anonymity after a council abandoned attempts to prevent them from seeing her.

Concerns about the safety of the girl, who is white and from Rotherham, peaked in August when she was discovered in a hotel room with one of the men, alongside vodka, cannabis, condoms and female Asian clothing.

The South Yorkshire council sought a civil injunction to protect the child from the men, whom it thought had pursued her for sex.

Last week, at a court hearing that it attempted to shroud in secrecy, the council withdrew its application because of “insufficient evidence”. The Times successfully fought for the case to be heard in public.

Rotherham was widely criticised after a 2014 independent inquiry found that 1,400 young girls in the town were groomed for sex over a 16-year period to 2013. Many were subjected to horrific crimes. “Almost all” of the offenders were of Pakistani heritage.

The girl who was the subject of its abandoned legal action has been known to social services since 2012 owing to her “general vulnerability”. Absent from school for long periods, she often disappeared from home and was reported to police as a missing child.

In 2014 the child protection authorities received reports that she was spending time in the company of Asian men and was in sexual relationships with some of them, two of whom had physically assaulted her. The girl told police that one of the men, who had convictions for drug and violent offences, controlled her.

She said that he came to her home uninvited and caused criminal damage. After the teenager was found by police in a hotel room two months ago, she was taken to a safe house and two men were arrested on suspicion of trafficking for sexual exploitation.

The council tried to make the girl a ward of court and gained interim court injunctions to prevent the four men from associating with her. On the opening day of a hearing last week at the family division of the High Court, sitting in Leeds, the authority unexpectedly abandoned its legal action.

In a move opposed by The Times, both the council and South Yorkshire police asked the court to grant the four men lifelong anonymity. They also sought, unsuccessfully, to persuade the judge to hold the proceedings in private.

In his judgment, delivered yesterday, Mr Justice Cobb questioned why Rotherham council waited until August to seek a court order to protect the girl, given what was known about her suspected past contact with sex-grooming adults. “There was, in my judgment and on the papers before me, sufficient and ostensibly reliable evidence on which Rotherham council could reach the view that [the girl] was potentially the subject of child sexual exploitation,” he said.

The judge did not criticise the council for abandoning its legal action, which followed the provision of “more detailed information” from police, but he noted “a failure in the collective responsibility” of the local authority and the South Yorkshire force “to work in partnership” on such cases.

Mr Justice Cobb granted the four men anonymity after the council and the police argued that naming them would risk identifying the girl. The judge said there was also a risk that, “given the strength of feeling in Rotherham about those who engage in child sexual exploitation, they would be pilloried and/or targeted in their communities”.

Keina Yoshida, for The Times, said that a transparent judicial process was vital to the rule of law. She said that naming the four men would assist meaningful public debate about child sexual exploitation. The judge noted that The Times was instrumental in exposing this “pernicious activity” in Rotherham but that there was “no true public interest” in naming the men.

What people should do is tell their daughters to keep clear of all Pakistani men ….because potentially any one of them could be one of the four being protected…… if it was my daughter I would be shouting their names from the roof tops ….. so much for lessons learned etc etc …. rmbc and the police should be ashamed of themselves … wonder what our useless MPs have to say ?.

Worth bearing in mind, this is another piece of news that we would not know about were it not for Andrew Norfolk and the Times’ deep pockets.
Kudos to them, shame on South Yorkshire Police and RMBC for trying to cover this up! Having learned nothing, it would appear?

‘were it not for Andrew Norfolk and the Times’ deep pockets.’
If organisations like Hacked Off had their way Norfolk and the Times would be shackled and none of this would have been reported.
Those who want state regulatory control of the press forget it was a free and independent press that exposed the Rachman scandal, the Thalidomide tragedies, Mandelson’s dodgy mortgage and the ‘Cash for Questions’ racket.

SYP is now (IMO) also ‘Not Fit For Purpose’ and political appointee Alan Billings should be called before the HASC to answer questions on the role and ethics of our local police service.
I won’t hold my breath.

Question here, one of the animals were found in a hotel room with the child, clearly not intending to give her after hours educational assistance, judging by the objects that were found. If the Police or the Council, had any evidence that something untoward might have happen or had happen prior, shouldn’t it be encumbant upon them to deem these indidviduals are not only a danger to this girl, but others.

That being the case, with other similar incidences, Chad Evans, Sir Cliff Richard, the reasons their names were made public, was the hope that other potential victims, would come forward. Since we know these creatures have a habit of abusing multiple girls, shouldn’t their indenties have been made public, in order to protect the public, but more importantly , the public Childrens from these scum? There way of thinking is one avenue is closed, another will open up?

“That being the case, with other similar incidences, Chad Evans, Sir Cliff Richard, the reasons their names were made public, was the hope that other potential victims, would come forward”

Indeed, the Cliff Richard contrast is particularly stark – a grotesque trawling operation in the full glare of publicity orchestrated by the Beeboids and South Yorkshire Plod, only a few days before the Jay Report was published – a crass attempt at diversion.

Whereas here apparatchiks and plods combine to keep the id of the grooming suspects a state secret.

How more rotten can this get?

Times

“The judge said there was also a risk that, “given the strength of feeling in Rotherham about those who engage in child sexual exploitation, they would be pilloried and/or targeted in their communities”.”

Stupid out of touch comment, absolutely typical – when were Pakistani groomers ever pilloried/targeted in their own communities?

“no true public interest” in naming the men.

So when did the protection of the most vulnerable cease being a “true public interest”?

Why was it in the public interest to name Birmingham suspects, but not here?

It may be recalled that various lefty apologists – and indeed the heroic Rochdale prosecutor – maintained with all the demented vehemence at their command that “Rotherham Model” CSE was all about the “night time economy”(apparently we never had a night time economy of any sort prior to Pakistani and other Muslim immigration)

“Where there is involvement of Asian men or men of Pakistani origin, he points to a practical, rather than cultural explanation – the fact that in the areas where grooming scandals have been uncovered, those controlling the night-time economy, people working through the night in takeaways and driving minicabs, are predominantly Asian men”

But of course car washes don’t actually operate at night, they are part of the day time economy(and a retrograde one at that) so one wonders how the creeping apologists would explain that away. I don’t suppose they’d try now, they’ve given up;